The Quebec mosque shooting and the Zionist connection

I’m not as quick to assume as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is. At a briefing yesterday, he rushed to refer to the Quebec mosque shooting where 6 Muslim worshipers were killed, as “a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the President is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security.”

The Washington Post had to wonder in its headline: “Why did Sean Spicer suggest that the Quebec shooting validated Trump’s policy initiatives?”

Indeed, as Glenn Greenwald points out, “Spicer exploited the attack to justify President Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries”– seven countries from which, incidentally, “foreigners… have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015”, as the CATO Institute noted last week.

Greenwald pointed out that “almost immediately, various news outlets and political figures depicted the shooter as Muslim. Right-wing nationalist tabloids in the UK instantly linked it to Islamic violence. Fox News claimed that ‘witnesses said at least one gunman shouted “Allahu akbar!”,’ and then added this about the shooter’s national origin: [Fox News tweet] ‘Suspect in Quebec mosque terror attack was of Moroccan origin, reports show’.” The claim was not retracted long after it became clear that it was false.

I would add references from across the Atlantic. The Israel National News still has up an article at the point of this writing, containing the headline “Report claims shooters yelled ‘Allahu akbar!’ in deadly Mosque shooting”. Israeli Walla News unquestioningly runs the “Allahu Akbar” narrative (Hebrew), Israeli Ynet includes it in headline (Hebrew) . That’s mainstream Israeli news. Haaretz, more careful, citing Reuters and Guardian, refrains from the claim (Hebrew).

But there was only one shooter. The other man mentioned as a Moroccan was a bystander, a witness to the attack, and his involvement was quickly dispelled. The mention of ‘Allahu akbar” appears to be a dog-whistle. It’s supposed to mean ‘Jihadist radical Islam’ or something like that. But do people realise, that shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ in a scene of an attack, especially by Arab-speaking Muslim, can be equivalent to an English-speaking Christian shouting ‘Oh my God!’?

Now that the ‘Islamist terrorism’ claim is dispelled (alas not all medias are as fast to follow through – what’s the hurry?), can we look at what other possible motives could be at play?

As Ali Abunimah notes, the shooter Alexandre Bissonnette, appears to be not only a fan of US President Donald Trump, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, holding anti-immigrant and anti-feminist views. He also appears to be a fan of the Israeli army and other ardent Zionist groups such as ‘United with Israel’.

No, we should not rush to conclusions, but isn’t there already something to be discussed here?

It is not very hard to understand the obvious connection to the anti-immigrant right, and that is of obvious relevance in light of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s welcoming of refugees in the wake of Trump’s draconian orders. But what about the Zionist aspect? It is hardly mentioned anywhere. NBC will even go down to details of Bissonnette’s Facebook account, noting that “he had liked pages for heavy metal bands, video games and public figures ranging from far-right French politician Marine Le Pen and U.S. President Donald Trump to chess grandmaster Anatoly Karpov and Pope John Paul II.” Yet no mention of Israel.

Interestingly, the Forward does mention the Israel connection clearly , but one is hard pressed to find such mentioning otherwise.

Such affinities towards white-nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment and particularly anti-Islamist tendencies (as this attack embodies in its very nature), dovetail rather well with Zionism.

In fact, one of the most horrid examples of Christian, White-supremacist terror, that of Anders Breivik in Norway 2011, also included a very clear ideological affinity with Zionism.

Former head of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman opined that this affiliation was ‘bizarre’: “One bizarre twist to Breivik’s warped worldview was his pro-Zionism – his strongly expressed support for the state of Israel”, Foxman wrote in the Washington Post.

“Who does Foxman think he is kidding?”, wrote Ali Abunimah, “There is nothing “bizarre” about this at all. Indeed Foxman himself has done much to bestow credibility on extremists who have helped popularise the Islamophobic views he now condemns. And he did it all to shore up support for Israel.”

Yet such discussions appear to be extremely contentious. Can we really take seriously loose affiliations to Israel and Zionism, just because some terrorist mentions it? Is it not merely the raving of a deranged individual?

Such caution appears to be completely absent when Israel seeks to incite against Palestinians. When Israel wants to frame ‘terrorism’ upon Palestinians, it seems enough to say ‘ISIS’ without a shred of evidence, and this will be echoed far and wide. This is what happened on the 8th of January with the alleged ramming and ‘terror attack’ in East Jerusalem that killed four Israeli soldiers. It was enough for Netanyahu to say “ISIS,” without a shred of evidence. And enough for Chief of Police Ronnie Alsheikh to say, “It is certainly possible to be influenced by watching TV”. Why be pedantic? When it comes to Palestinians, it’s no problem to shout “terror” and make loose, baseless allegations.

The same happened more recently, on January 18th, when Israel enacted its ethnic cleansing operation at the Israeli Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran. Schoolteacher Yaqoub Moussa Abu Al-Qia’an was shot by Israeli police whilst driving his car slowly, after which he accelerated (apparently, his leg was shot first) and ended up killing an Israeli Policeman, Erez Levi. Abu Al-Qia’an was then shot again and left to bleed to death (as is often the case with assumed ‘terrorists’). Immediately Abu Al-Qia’an was publicly framed, not merely as a terrorist, but even one with ‘jihadist sympathies’.

As I wrote at the time, the police made the ‘Jihadist sympathy’ claim based upon a raid of his home in which they discovered copies of Israel Hayom (Shledon Adelson funded right-leaning paper) from 2015 whose banner headlines spoke of an ISIS bomb attack, as well as books in Arabic. Reading such a newspaper– the most read newspaper in Israel, with a headline that is typical– is surely very suspicious. So is the possession of Arab books. Shouldn’t Al-Qia’an only have been reading Yiddish?

There appears to be no end to the speed, range and ridiculousness of the assumptions when it comes to Israel and its incitement against Palestinians. When the word ‘terror’ is presented, this presses a button and the world media mostly responds accordingly and submissively. It’s enough to make the ‘Islamist’ allegation, and it will be re-quoted, no proof necessary. We are so prone to connect terror with ‘Islam’, that it is almost an automatic assumption.

But figures show that this assumption is unfounded in reason. Less than 2% of the terror attacks in Europe 2010-2015 were “religiously motivated”, thus, not ‘Islamic terrorism’. In USA, an FBI study looking at terrorism committed on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 found that 94 percent of the terror attacks were committed by non-Muslims. As New York Times also notes, “since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, anti-government fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.”

Nonetheless, in defiance of all fact, figures and reason, Fox News host Brian Kilmead said a few years ago on live debate, that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

How much are we prone to believe these sorts of claims? Is it just one dumb pundit? No, there are many more. Some of them are even National Security Advisers, like Michael Flynn.

In August, Flynn spoke to a Jewish synagogue congregation about ‘Islamism’. In the past, Flynn has regarded the whole of Islam as a ‘cancer’. But now he was trying to make a more ‘sophisticated’ (the same kind of ‘sophistication’ applied by Kilmead), that the cancer is ‘Islam-ISM’:

“We are facing another ‘ism,’ just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism,” Flynn said. “This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised.”

Well, that is actually very funny. Something about that ‘ISM’, huh? Did the irony that Flynn was talking to a congregation defined by Juda-ISM, most all of them likely supporting Zion-ISM, completely pass everyone over the head? And what about his ‘imperialism’? That’s just hilarious. But it’s also very serious. He’s the National Security Adviser. He sees a major world religion as a cancer (where his attempts at sophistication of his primitive bigotry end up totally ridiculous).

Benjamin Netanyahu has also taken some of Flynn’s lines (or was it the other way around?) when he compared ‘radical Islam’ (Flynn’s ‘Islamism’) to Communism and Nazism, hailing the hardline ideologist Jabotinsky’s ‘Iron Wall’ policy (also back in August).

But is it possible that terrorists today can actually get their inspirations from the supposed ‘bastions of democracy and freedom’?

After all, Obama’s killer-drone campaign is regarded by Noam Chomsky (on CNN) as “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times.” Chomsky characterized Obama’s policy as a “global assassination campaign targeting people suspected of perhaps intending to harm us some day, and any unfortunates who happen to be nearby.”

And what about Israel’s seasonal massacres in Gaza? Is that not a state-terrorist campaign? What about the siege of Gaza? Last week, the Council of Europe has condemned it as “collective punishment”. Is this not also a form of state terrorism?

We should not be surprised when terrorists who aim their attacks at Muslims or perceived Muslim supporters get inspiration from western state terrorism, and Israel in particular. Zionism, the ideology informing the Jewish State, is for all practical purposes a violent, anti-assimilationist, nationalist-exclusivist ideology that has ethnic cleansing at its very heart. It is not strange, that white-supremacist terrorists would draw their inspiration and awe from its means and methods.

About Jonathan Ofir

Posted In:

45 Responses

… The mention of ‘Allahu akbar” appears to be a dog-whistle. It’s supposed to mean ‘Jihadist radical Islam’ or something like that. But do people realise, that shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ in a scene of an attack, especially by Arab-speaking Muslim, can be equivalent to an English-speaking Christian shouting ‘Oh my God!’? …

My understanding is that it was the killer who (allegedly) shouted “Allahu akbar” as he entered the mosque. It makes sense that he would do so: The phrase would be the perfect “f*ck you” to the people he despised and was about to murder.

… “We are facing another ‘ism,’ just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism,” Flynn said. “This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised.” …

Zionism – blatantly and unapologetically oppressive, thieving, murderous and supremacist – is also a vicious cancer inside the body of millions upon millions of people on this planet and it has to be excised.

It was, and still is, a sad day. I was wondering if the site would cover it. I was also wondering if it was even covered on US news networks given that it was Muslim terrorism and therefore probably not of interest. I could have checked but decided to watch our less sensational news networks.

I am out and about today and I have a lot more to say on this including criticism of Canadian news networks.

This was terrorism. This was a right wing adherent exercising his personal freedom.

I was glad that the news was not presented in a sensational way. No hype, commentary from experts, rampant speculation.

I was even more glad at the way the community and country leadership responded. Yes it is only words but…

It was unfortunate that they released the name(s) of the suspects from unofficial sources only to have it tur out one wasn’t a suspect.

Once it was apparent that it wasn’t Islamic terrorism I was happy to see it labelled terrorism since it was exactly that.

I was appalled to hear the newsdesk anchor say that there is now some question as to whether it was mass murder or terrorism. I don’t really care what it is called as long as a extremely lengthy sentence is given but we all know the question wouldn’t be raised if it had been a Muslim perp.

I was even more appalled to read comments at the cbc site which said this proved that we need to restrict Muslim immigration. Some of the idiots probably didn’t read passed the terrorism headline but some stated that proves they can’t fit in. Blaming the victim in the extreme.

Even if it had been Islamic, the bulk of incidents we have had like this over many years have been perpetrated by angry white men.

And having a Holocaust Day hasn’t stopped Palestinians being murdered
The Soviet Union lost 26 m people.
Why don’t we have a day to remember war rather than just the Holocaust?
Or a global day of peace

In Louis Lipsky’s book, A GALLERY OF ZIONIST PROFILES, Lipsky has this interesting thing to say about Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), Menachem Begin’s (1913-1992) mentor: “[Ze’ev] was doubtless influenced by his admiration for Mussolini, not as a political theorist but as a performer. In fact [Ze’ev’s] opponents were personally greatly attracted to [Mussolini]. At one time, even Dr. [Chaim] Weizmann established cordial relations with him on a social level. The same was true of David Ben-Gurion, who on several occasions was on the verge of making peace with him, but was held back by his own party. . . . [Ze’ev] would have distinguished himself and his party [the Revisionist Party], had he lived to the days when the Yishuv rose in conflict with the [British] Mandatory regime, and the power of the Revisionist Party was taken over by the Irgun (NewYork: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956, p. 100).

I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone who reads Mondoweiss who Bibi looked up to as a mentor (before he passed away in 1992).

I am so very grateful for you putting it out here~ it’s been a peeve of mine for a long, long time. It’s been sorely and shamefully lacking in most discourse, and now the conversations should begin with vigor.

Nobody can unring this bell.

RIP to the dead victims of this horrible and vile suspect, and profound wishes for the recovery of those wounded and all of the families/friends that are also hurting.

That is really cool jon. All your interpretation of the furst se lt of numbers tell us is that Muslims are more effective or have greater luck.

Statistically they are less likely to perpetrate.

I didn’t bother to read your second link as I feel the poi t is irrelevant. Until such time as we include state sponsored terrorism such as that perpetrated by the US, UK and Israel (a state created and sustained through terrorism) it is a meaningless number. The thought that those states (and their poodles) get to slaughter people without blowback isn’t silly, isn’t crazy, isn’t laughable. But it is the absolute height of stupidity.

Welcome to your place on the left hand of the bell curve. Wear it with pride. You earned it fully and proved it.

OG,
It’s not an interpretation. It’s a set of numbers.
My speculation on why the discrepancy- the jihadist attacks aim for fatalities, the other terrorist attacks do not. Most likely the separatists aim is attention and property damage. But this is conjecture, I have no proof. That’s why I didn’t post a reason.

As I said, you open it even though you don’t understand. Even if you understood epidemiology, which you don’t, this is not medical. I’ll define terrorism as any act of international aggression and all intended and unintended consequences thereof, while counting all acts of resistance to invaders and occupiers (“by any means available”) which in the consequences column. So terrorism includes, for example, all observed excess events over expected directly or indirectly following the Zionist invasion and wars of aggression, including all US wars obviously corresponding to the Zionist Yinon plan. Get a pencil and start reckoning.

“I am not familiar enough with the culture/context to offer anything more”

but we know all about you from ahadith this is sahih muslim, no less

“Al-Mustawrid al-Qurashi said whilst in the presence of ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aas, ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) say, ‘The Hour will come when the Romans are the largest in number.’ ‘Amr said to him, ‘Look to what you are saying!’ He said, ‘I only say what I heard from the Messenger (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam).’ So he said, ‘If that’s the case, then they (the Romans) have four characteristics: They are the most patient of people during times of tribulation, they are the quickest to recover after a calamity, they are the most likely to return after fleeing and they are the best towards the poor, orphans and the weak. The fifth is a beautiful deed: They prevent the oppression of Rulers the most.’ “

“A damning 2008 Pentagon-funded Rand report proposed a precise blueprint for what was about to happen. That report observes that control of the Persian Gulf oil and gas deposits will remain, for the U.S., “a strategic priority” that “will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war.” Rand recommended using “covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare” to enforce a “divide and rule” strategy. “The United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists to launch a proxy campaign” and “U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni conflict trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world … possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran.”

In a more nuanced world of hair splitting and not cherry picking discussion that is on an open and accessible forum, one will be able to argue that the cold calculated murder by terrorism is actually the main foundation of the US strategic thinking .

Jon, you don’t have to be an expert on any culture but your own to acknowledge the point people are making– it is convenient for Westerners, especially Israelis, to carve out a category of violence carried out by non state actors and call it ” terrorism”. The next step is to treat it as uniquely awful, ignoring the fact that state violence against civilians is greater. Then even within the category of non state terror, people like you ignore the fact that the US and Israel support some of these terrorist groups.

no more than shooter’s link to zionism so obviously fictional and fatuously established in this desparate attempted association that gathered many responders gulping such disbelief. memes have consequences.
alluah ahkbar y’all

{As New York Times also notes, “since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, anti-government fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.}

That said, I’m not sure the jihadi label is appropriate for all the incidents included under it. It seems to me much if it is motivated more by opposition to US intervention than from strictly religious impulse.

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.